Proposed new capital of Egypt 1.78

The proposed new capital of Egypt is a large-scale project announced by Egyptian housing minister Mostafa Madbouly at the Egypt Economic Development Conference on 13 March 2015.The new, yet-unnamed city is to be located 45 kilometers (28 miles) east of Cairo and just outside the Second Greater Cairo Ring Road in a currently largely undeveloped area halfway to the seaport city of Suez. According to the plans, the city would become the new administrative and financial capital of Egypt, housing the main government departments and ministries, as well as foreign embassies. On 700km2 total area, it would have a population of five million people, though it is estimated that the figure could rise to seven million.Officially, a major reason for the undertaking of the project was to relieve congestion in Cairo, which is already one of the world's most crowded cities, with the population of greater Cairo expected to double in the next few decades.PlansThe city is planned to consist of 21 residential districts and 25 "dedicated districts." Its downtown is to have skyscrapers and a tall monument said to resemble the Eiffel Tower and Washington Monument. The city will also have a park double the size of New York City's Central Park, artificial lakes, about 2,000 educational institutions, a technology and innovation park, 663 hospitals and clinics, 1,250 mosques, 40,000 hotel rooms, a major theme park four times the size of Disneyland, 90 square kilometers of solar energy farms, an electric railway link with Cairo, and a new international airport at the site of the preexisting Wadi al Jandali Airport currently used by the Egyptian Air Force. It will be built as a smart city. It is planned that the transfer of parliament, presidential palaces, government ministries and foreign embassies will be completed between 2020 and 2022 at a cost of US $45 billion. A full cost and timescale for the overall project has not been disclosed.